We were
well aware, that throughout the winter and spring, the queen was in the family,
but lost the ability to lay eggs. She managed to lay several eggs, mostly
unfertilized, from which emerged a few
drones . The family still has a lot of bees, which during last days brought a lot of nectar from the willows
blooming around. Since there is no brood, approximately 3-4 frames were already
filled with nectar.
Diagnostics
showed the following.
1) The
family is in working condition. The result was given by the test in the General
State Control mode.
2) There is
no brood in the family at all. Therefore, using the Brood Control mode gave the
expected result. There is no brood and so, respectively, there is no any kind
of care, and no heating of brood by the
bees.
3) Since
there is no brood in the family, all works are aimed at bringing and processing
nectar. Even if there are not so many of these works, they are still
substantially more than other in-hive works, given the lack of brood, which
deprives the bees of the need to perform a lot of different works. Control,
carried out in Readiness for Honey Harvest Control mode, showed, that work with honey is underway, and this honey will
most likely will not be spent on family food, but will be saved as stocks, which could be taken by the beekeeper in the
form of marketable honey.
4) An old
queen was deleted from the family, and instead of it, the family was given a
frame with a small number of brood of different ages for laying new queen
cells. Control of the family using Readiness to Accept New Queen mode, did not
give any result because it is based on the work of bees with young brood. But
in this family it is not exists. Therefore, the test was not effective ...
5) Another
test was made in order to find out the condition of the bees after the queen
was removed, and the family was given a brood frame for laying new queen cells.
The test using New Queen Acceptance Control mode, showed, that the bees were
quite calm right after they were given a brood frame, and after a while, the
graph, showing their attitude to the situation, went to the white area border,
and turned into a straight line at the top of the "acceptance area"! This means the maximum degree of calm and
satisfaction of the bees, and the absence of any excitement in the family....
So, using 5
of the 6 available modes, we were able to get a complete description of the
state of our family that we chose for the experiment.
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